A California state lawmaker at the forefront of the #MeToo movement faces a growing number of sexual misconduct allegations herself. Four former employees filed a formal complaint against Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia. Another says he was fired after protesting when she suggested playing “spin the bottle.”

As a #MeToo activist, she’s called on those accused of harassment to resign immediately – but she does not plan to do so herself.

Kyodo:Finnish minister warns crumbling world order will lead to “abyss”

Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini on Wednesday expressed strong concern about Russian expansionism and the nuclear threat presented by North Korea, and warned that the erosion of postwar norms will see the world “sleepwalking towards the abyss once again.”

At a press conference in Tokyo ahead of a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono, Soini urged Japan to continue to work with Finland to uphold the international order as basic freedoms fall under increasing pressure in many countries.

“International treaties are under challenge, or are being interpreted in ways which risk making them meaningless,” Soini said.

What in the world is he talking about?

Japan and Finland cooperate in a number of areas including arms anti-proliferation and climate change.

Soini is retired from politics so I guess that means he’s a lobbyist. Like Tony Blair, former Presidents, senators.

TODAY: U.S. fighter jet dumps fuel tanks into lake after engine fire. BREAKING NEWS: Seventh grader at Ohio middle school shoots himself in a bathroom on campus. Michigan model mother, 45, ‘killed her husband, two adult children and the family dog before committing suicide after being shunned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses’. Japanese ‘baby factory’ dad wins custody of 13 Thai surrogate children. CIA lie surrounding the Howard Hughes Glomar Explorer.

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A U.S. fighter jet that developed an engine fire Tuesday shortly after takeoff from Misawa Air Base in northeastern Japan jettisoned a pair of fuel tanks into a lake near the base, the U.S. military said.

While no injuries were reported, the F-16’s external fuel tanks fell into the lake with a huge splash some 400 meters from where clam boats were operating, according to Japanese government officials and local fishermen.

The incident led the Japanese government to urge the U.S. military to take thorough measures to ensure safety during its operations. Japan is home to around 50,000 U.S. military personnel, dispersed among facilities nationwide, including Okinawa.

“Ensuring the safety of local residents is the basic premise (in base) operations. We strongly urge the U.S. side to see that safety is ensured, the cause is investigated and measures are taken to avoid the same thing from happening again,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a parliamentary committee.

“We are seeing U.S. military aircraft accidents happening too often. A serious accident can happen at any moment. This abnormal situation is unacceptable,” Satoru Oshiro, a member of Okinawa’s antibase civic group, said.

DailyMail:BREAKING NEWS: Seventh grader at Ohio middle school shoots himself in a bathroom on campus

* Student shot himself in a boy’s bathroom at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Ohio on Tuesday morning
* He was rushed to hospital to be treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound
* The boy’s condition is now yet known
* School went into lockdown and students are in the process of being reuinted with their parents
* Police would not reveal if the shooting was intentional or an accidenthttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5413599/Ohio-middle-school-student-shoots-bathroom.html

DailyMail:Michigan model mother, 45, ‘killed her husband, two adult children and the family dog before committing suicide after being shunned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses’

* Police say Lauren Stuart, 45, shot and killed her husband Daniel, 47, and their children Steven, 27, and Bethany, 24, before turning the gun on herself
* The bodies of the four family members were found inside their Keego Harbor, Michigan home Friday morning
* Friends said the Stuarts had been shunned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses after leaving the Christian sect five years ago
* The Stuarts reportedly wanted to sent their children to college, which is banned by the group

A Bangkok court has awarded a wealthy Japanese man “sole parent” rights to 13 children he fathered through surrogate mothers, paving the way for him to take custody of them all after dismissing fears he was involved in human trafficking.

Mitsutoki Shigeta, 28, the son of a rich IT tycoon, became the focus of a “baby factory” scandal in 2014 after the Thai police discovered he had fathered nine infants, aged between two weeks and two years old, who were being cared for by nannies in an upmarket Bangkok apartment.

The children, along with four others also fathered by Mr Shigeta, were placed under the care of the Thai state while Interpol investigated whether it was a case of human trafficking.

Mr Shigeta “was born in a big family and wanted the children to grow up together,” the lawyer argued, adding that he also wanted his offspring to help run the family business.

Bangkok’s Central Juvenile Court on Tuesday upheld his claim after Thai officials checked that he had enough carers and facilities to give the children a good home.

TODAY: 6-year-old boy among 4 people shot outside Texas Roadhouse in San Antonio, police say. Weekend violence in Chicago: 6 killed, 21 wounded. Fukuoka Pref. to aid gangsters seeking to leave yakuza syndicates. Cambridge graduate handed 32-year jail sentence for ‘warped and sadistic’ campaign of online blackmail. Pro wrestler admits to role in 1987 unsolved train track murder of two boys and claims it was linked to a cocaine smuggling ring as he implicates ‘criminal Arkansas politician’ in far-reaching cover-up. Has the body of Captain Black Sam Bellamy been found at last? Remains of the richest pirate ever are found encased in his shipwreck decades after its discovery off Cape Cod

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The Fukuoka prefectural government said Monday it will pay transportation and accommodation fees for gangsters seeking to leave organized crime groups from April, a rare initiative aimed at promoting their return to society and weakening syndicates.

Yakuza members wishing to cut ties with underworld groups but who are afraid of revenge and cannot rely on families or friends for refuge will be entitled to the aid, according to the prefectural police, which is administering the new policy.

DailyMail:Pro wrestler admits to role in 1987 unsolved train track murder of two boys and claims it was linked to a cocaine smuggling ring as he implicates ‘criminal Arkansas politician’ in far-reaching cover-up

* Former WWE star Billy Jack Haynes, 62, has made bombshell claim in cold case
* Kevin Ives, 17, and Don Henry, 16, were found dead on August 23, 1987
* The Arkansas teens were hit by a train after they went hunting at night
* Initially ruled an accident, grand jury found they were murdered before train hit
* Now Haynes says he was working a cocaine drop when boys stumbled across it
* Implicates local law enforcement and officials in the brutal double murder

DailyMail:Has the body of Captain Black Sam Bellamy been found at last? Remains of the richest pirate ever are found encased in his shipwreck decades after its discovery off Cape Cod

* Samuel ‘Black Sam’ Bellamy was aboard the Whydah Gally which sunk in 1717
* He got his nickname for wearing his black locks tied back instead of a white wig
* Bones and other items were found in the Cape Cod peninsula in Massachusetts
* Whydah Pirate Museum in Yarmouth is investigating if the remains are Black Sam
* Bellamy is regarded as one of most infamous and successful pirates of all time

In the US we are amazed at the nationwide spread of attempted mass shootings before and after the FL shooting. Right now there is reason to believe these troubled teens share medication connections but that remains unconfirmed for the copy-cat hoaxsters.

An Indian state minister has armed some 700 brides with wooden bats to be used in self-defense should their husbands ever raise a hand on them. “Police won’t intervene,” reads the reassuring inscription, encouraging use against alcohol-dependent spouses.

The foot-long wooden bats were presented as gifts at a mass marriage ceremony on Saturday by Gopal Bhargava, a minister in the state of Madhya Pradesh, who instructed some 700 brides to use them on husbands if they turn alcoholic or exhibit harassing behavior.

Traditionally used to get the dirt out of clothes in old-fashioned laundries through the beating of the garments, the paddles called the ‘mogri’ were embroidered with messages that read: “For beating drunkards” and “Police won’t intervene.”

In 2014, [ 26-year-old Sweety ]Sen and members of her family traveled to the town of Kathgodam to meet a 22-year-old woman that she had got in touch with on Facebook.

“Sen had convinced her that she [Sen] was a man,” Khanduri said. The two were married the same year and began living together in a rented house. However, the perceived marital bliss ended when Sen began assaulting the woman for her dowry, police allege.

Later, in 2016, Sen married a 20-year-old woman and rented an apartment with her. Sen never allowed either woman to see her body, and used sex toys to maintain the illusion of being male, according to authorities.

In October 2017, Sen’s first wife filed a police complaint, charging Sen with dowry theft and domestic violence. She alleged that Sen took $850,000 rupees (US$13,243) from her family, claiming she needed the money for a factory she owned in Hardwar. “We got married in 2014. She used to behave like a man, used to drink, smoke and also abuse. She used to threaten to kill me after she married another woman. It got confirmed after medical examination that she was a woman and not a man,” the first wife told ANI news agency.

https://www.rt.com/news/419010-indian-woman-male-impersonation-dowry/

RT:Blood flows at Indian wedding as misfired celebratory rifle shot kills groom’s father

As he dances amid the celebratory gunfire, grooms father Mansoor Patel is suddenly struck by the bullet of a careless guest, who appeared to have accidentally pulled the trigger of his weapon while reloading.

The shot, fired at near point blank range, struck Patel directly in the head, killing him instantly. The footage shows shocked revelers rushing in vain to his aid.

Celebrating marriages with gunfire is a tradition still upheld in parts of the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe. But obviously not everyone should be trusted to carry out the potentially deadly custom.

Not endorsing big Troy but he brings up a couple of points. 1) a private company will be using eminent domain to take peoples land to profit by building a high speed rail to Houston. Houston? Who wants to go to Houston more than once?

2) the state of Texas and federal government are considering a poison to kill feral hogs in our state. What that means is if you go hog hunting—you can’t eat the meat!

The murders happened on Dec. 28 during an 8-hour span. Ronzay Green, 23, was first gunned down in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven in Northeast D.C and efforts to save him were unsuccessful. Police in Prince George’s County and Washington, D.C. then found Armani Coles, 27, dead on the side of Interstate-295 in Maryland and the body of Kerrice Lewis, 23, inside a burning car in a Southeast D.C. alley.

In a 10-page affidavit, witnesses told police all three victims were involved in a credit card scheme with Dennis Whitaker, a 23-year-old rapper, who allegedly decided to kill the trio after believing he was going to be set up for a robbery, FOX5 DC reported.

Foxnews:Vehicle attempts to enter National Security Agency campus; several injured

Several people were taken to the hospital after the vehicle tried to enter the campus on Fort Meade just after 7 a.m., the NSA said in a statement. The conditions of the injured were unknown.

“…preliminary reports do not presently indicate that there are injuries attributable to gunfire.”

The shooting occurred at the visitors gate off Route 32 at the U.S. military installation. The highway was quickly closed off in both directions as police responded to the incident. Video from the scene showed an SUV riddled with bullets, the vehicle’s airbags were deployed and bloodied items were on the ground. The SUV also appeared to have crashed into a white barrier.

FBI Baltimore has assumed the investigative lead in the Fort Meade incident

According to the ministry, a Maritime Self-Defense Force airplane spotted a North Korea-flagged tanker and another tanker registered in Belize alongside each other on the high seas about 250 kilometers east of Shanghai in the early hours of Tuesday.

Japan reported to the United Nations on Wednesday an alleged transfer of goods between tankers in the East China Sea in violation of sanctions against North Korea, the Foreign Ministry said.

Such ship-to-ship transfers are among the activities banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted in response to North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile testing.

South Korea decided Wednesday to pay the costs of hosting hundreds of North Koreans during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, brushing aside concerns that could contravene international sanctions imposed over the North’s nuclear and missile tests.

CNS News:Feds Collect Record Taxes in First Month Under Tax Cut; Run Surplus in January

Click-bait caution.

The federal government this January ran a surplus while collecting record total tax revenues for that month of the year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

January was the first month under the new tax law that President Donald Trump signed in December.

During January, the Treasury collected approximately $361,038,000,000 in total tax revenues and spent a total of approximately $311,802,000,000 to run a surplus of approximately $49,236,000,000.

Despite the monthly surplus of $49,236,000,000, the federal government is still running a deficit of approximately $175,718,000,000 for fiscal year 2018. That is because the government entered the month with a deficit of approximately $224,955,000,000.

Telegraph:Julian Assange loses bid to overturn arrest warrant, as judge says he appears to consider himself ‘above the law’

Mr Assange had argued it was no longer in the public interest to pursue him for failing to answer bail at a police station after moving into the embassy while fighting extradition to face rape charges in Sweden.

The 46 year-old – who says he fears extradition to the United States for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he leaves – accused the UK of a “cover-up” to keep him detained and claimed through his lawyers that his case had exposed “improper conduct” by the Crown Prosecution Service.

But Judge Arbuthnot said that far from being ‘detained’ he had effectively restricted his own freedom.

As the South’s President Moon Jae In has asked the North to resume dialogue with Washington as a condition for a summit between the Koreas, all eyes are on whether Kim, who continues to pursue nuclear weapons, will move in that direction.

“It is important to continue making good results by further livening up the warm climate of reconciliation and dialogue,” the Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying Monday during talks with his country’s high-ranking delegation to the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Kim also expressed “satisfaction” over the delegation’s visit to South Korea, giving “practical instructions” aimed at mending inter-Korean relations, according to the agency. It did not specify the details of the instructions made by the leader.

The delegation, whose members included Kim’s younger sister and close aide Kim Yo Jong and ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam, met with Moon on Saturday during their three-day trip through Sunday.

TODAY: Trump’s $1.5 TRILLION infrastructure plan. Prosecutors set to recommend PROBATION for 61-year-old man who admitted to molesting his seven-year-old granddaughter. Investigation launched into Aetna after former medical director admits he NEVER viewed patient records before approving or denying care. Snowboarder Jamie Anderson says she unleashed her ‘lion power’ to clinch gold at the Winter Olympics. Days to Fish. Dow volatility.

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DailyMail:Trump’s $1.5 TRILLION infrastructure plan will hit Washington on Monday as president says America needs to spend money ‘in our country’ instead of the Middle East

* Massive infrastructure push will target roads, bridges, tunnels, rail, seaports and airports
* Trump is banking on states and other smaller governments to spend most of the money
* ‘This will be a big week for Infrastructure,’ Trump tweeted Monday morning
* ‘After so stupidly spending $7 trillion in the Middle East, it is now time to start investing in OUR Country!’

DailyMail:Prosecutors set to recommend PROBATION for 61-year-old man who admitted to molesting his seven-year-old granddaughter

* Dean Hilpipre, 61, was charged with two counts of second-degree sex abuse in July for molesting his now seven-year-old granddaughter
* The two counts carried a penalty of up to 50 years in prison
* The Alden, Iowa man struck a plea deal with prosecutors in December
* Prosecutors are set to recommend his sentence be suspended and that he only serve probation
* The judge will have the final say at the sentencing hearing on February 23
* Hilpipre also recently won $100,000 playing an Iowa lottery game

DailyMail:Investigation launched into Aetna after former medical director admits he NEVER viewed patient records before approving or denying care

* A probe has been launched into Aetna’s former medical director Dr. Jay Ken Iinuma
* Iinuma admitted he never checked patient medical records when approving or denying services
* The primary care physician relied on nurse recommendations for patients rather than doing his own review
* California’s Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said the case is ‘troubling’
* He also said Iinuma’s careless practices could be ‘potentially a violation of law’
* Jones urges patients who believe they were ‘adversely affected’ by Iinuma’s practices to contact his office

DailyMail:Snowboarder Jamie Anderson says she unleashed her ‘lion power’ to clinch gold at the Winter Olympics… and listened to Dr Dre to get herself in the zone

* Jamie Anderson, 27, won gold in slopestyle event in Pyeongchang, South Korea
* She remained focused as others fell by the wayside in brutal weather conditions
* Many of her competitors slammed skiing officials for not postponing the event
* But with the help of her favorite rapper, she eased clear of chasing pack to win

DailyMail:Big cat poacher is mauled to death and EATEN by the pride of lions he was hunting with only his head remaining at South African game reserve

* Man is believed to have been hunting pride of lions when the big cats attacked
* Screams were heard as he was being mauled to death at South African reserve
* The lions devoured most of the poacher’s body but left his head untouched

David Sherrard was the goofy guy with a quick smile and an encouraging word for others. He was the one who didn’t hesitate to lend a helping hand. And the one who always had the backs of his brothers in blue.

But the 37-year-old Richardson police officer’s watch came to a sudden and tragic end Wednesday night when he was fatally shot after responding to a disturbance at an apartment complex.

BGR:Secret code from the iPhone was posted to Github in the ‘biggest leak in history’

It’s unclear how it ended up on Github, but the iBoot source code leak is now being called the “biggest leak in history,” according to security researcher Jonathan Levin’s comments to Motherboard.

Levin, who wrote a series of books on iOS and macOS, says it’s a “huge deal” that the iBoot code got out. “iBoot is the one component Apple has been holding on to, still encrypting its 64-bit image,” Levin said. “And now it’s wide open in source code form.”

The code appears to be real according to his own reverse engineering. Even though the leaked iBoot code is from iOS 9, it may still be relevant to security researchers and hackers looking for holes in Apple’s mobile operating system. Apple [has] confirmed the authenticity of the leak.

Any iBoot vulnerabilities discovered could lead to new jailbreaks, and even ways to decrypt the iPhone. The leak could also allow hackers to emulate iOS on non-Apple platforms.

A Texas prosecutor on Thursday dismissed 13 cases stemming from a 2015 shootout in Waco involving bikers and police and recused himself from two others, placing into doubt the criminal prosecution of the more than 130 bikers still awaiting trial.

District Attorney Abel Reyna is currently facing corruption allegations and spurring wild speculation about about the remaining 122 three year old charges.

Chicago Tribune:Suburban woman testifies she was forced into sexual servitude, beaten over the smallest infraction

Victoria was a 19-year-old heroin addict living in an abandoned building on Chicago’s West Side in 2009 when she says she fell into a trap set by Benjamin Biancofiori.

She’d been kicked out of her west suburban home by her mother in a desperate show of tough love, Victoria, now 29, testified Thursday in a federal courtroom. After she was jailed on a drug charge, another inmate told her about Biancofiori — that he would get her off the streets, that he’d give her all the drugs she wanted, that he’d take care of her.

“I would have somewhere to go and be out of the cold, somewhere safe,” Victoria said in a quiet voice at Biancofiori’s trial on sex trafficking charges as she recalled why she took the bait.

When she bonded out of jail, an associate of Biancofiori’s nicknamed “Tiger” was there to meet her. He took her to an apartment in northwest suburban Itasca where Biancofiori lived. It was there that Victoria’s nightmare began.

Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, chair of the Legislative Women’s Caucus who has been at the forefront of the movement against sexual harassment in the state Capitol, has herself become the subject of allegations of sexual misconduct. The Bell Gardens Democrat said she would “participate fully” in an investigation.

Politico reported Thursday that after Garcia pushed the sexual abuse whistleblower protection act into law, two men said Garcia made improper advances toward them. One, a former legislative staffer, said Garcia groped his back and buttocks and attempted to grab his crotch during a legislative softball game in 2014.

The victim, named locally as 28-year-old Walailak Sukuma, had been drinking with a group of friends near Samsen train station in Bangkok’s Phaya Thai district before the incident at 4am local time on Thursday.

She was hit while attempting to take a photo with an outgoing train in the background, but failed to spot an oncoming train approaching the station, reports say.

Japan on Friday deported eight of the 10 crew members of a North Korean fishing boat after they were involved in a theft on a small northern Japanese island last year.

Immigration authorities in Sapporo said a plane carrying the eight has left New Chitose Airport. Nine of the 10 were arrested or referred to prosecutors on suspicion of stealing a power generator from a hut on the uninhabited Hokkaido island, but all but the captain were not indicted.

The crewmen were believed to have been fishing for squid in the Sea of Japan before their wooden boat was found drifting in waters near the island off the town of Matsumae in late November.

The men told the Japan Coast Guard that they temporarily took shelter on the islet due to bad weather.

RT:No reliable evidence of chlorine use by Syrian govt – French defense minister

France has no reliable evidence that the chemical agent chlorine was used by the Syrian government forces, and thus cannot yet speak of a ‘red line’ having been crossed, the French Defense Minister said.

Currently, Paris is not ready for a harsh response alluded to by French President Emmanuel Macron in May 2017, according to the country’s defense chief. At that time, Macron said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria is “a red line” for France and would result in “immediate reprisals.”

I think it was our State Dept that identifies RUSSIA as the purported chemical attack.

The Ghost of Chance is sitting in as el Dub was up late for the NicktheRat.com show and hear el Dub about 40 minutes into this episode. We encourage adults to listen in for the odd comedy, altho el Dub’s semi weekly bits are always family friendly.

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This is the News in my Breifs, From the I hate Broccoli off campus studios it’s your host, the Ghost of Chance.

As Nancy Pelosi had a very long speech, today’s show will be short to counter balance. From the USA Today,” Nancy Pelosi’s all-day marathon speech sets record as longest continuous speech since at least 1909.” This was done as a protest in support of DACA.

The daily mail reports “EXCLUSIVE: Rob Porter RESIGNS from White House after ex-wife tells DailyMail.com that Hope Hicks’ new boyfriend choked, punched and belittled her about her weight…and the FBI knew all about it”
Rob Porter has resigned from his role as White House staff secretary after his first ex-wife told DailyMail.com that he choked and punched her during their marriage

Coming to us from yahoo news, “Woman found holding her eyeball outside S Carolina church.” The injuries were reportedly self inflicted.

Kaiser Health News reports, “Bipartisan Senate Budget Deal Boosts Health Programs.”
The bill addresses defense budget increases and many domestic health programs. The bill was described by chuck Schumer as “… a budget deal that neither side loves but both sides can be proud of.”

This has been The News in my Briefs, I’m the Ghost of Chance fading away.

[Musk’s] cherry-red Tesla, carrying a dummy and blasting Bowie’s Life on Mars, was supposed to take a path around the Sun which would take it out into Mars’ orbit.

It appears the super-strong rocket, with twice the firing power of any before it, overshot that trajectory and is has now pushed the Tesla into an orbit which extends into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

DailyMail: scored an EXCLUSIVE: Adam Schiff sent his staff to try and collect ‘classified materials for the FBI’ after Russian pranksters told him Putin has NAKED blackmail pictures of Trump

* Adam Schiff, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intel Committee was recorded speaking to Russian pranksters who spun elaborate ‘kompromat’ tale
* He told Vocan and Lexus, two radio pranksters who have also hit Nikki Haley, that he would pass their claims to the FBI in a call made last year
* The duo posed as a fake Ukrainian politician to say Trump had sex with Russian glamour model Olga Buzova after a Miss Universe pageant in 2013
* In the call they said Putin had been passed naked pictures of Trump and now-president had used secret codes for talks with Russians
* Duo gave emails to DailyMail.com which showed Schiff’s staff trying to arrange to collect ‘classified’ documents from Ukraine’s embassy in D.C.
* Schiff’s office claimed he was not fooled by the call and reported it to ‘authorities’ but did not explain why his staff kept up correspondence
* Call posted in April 2017 surfaced as Schiff waits to see if Trump will declassify his Democratic version of the Devin Nunes memo which shamed the FBI

The short version, the embattled Police Scotland has been under heavy scrutiny and senior officers are dropping like flies. Gormley went on leave to deal with investigations into his less than two year term. Attempting to then return to his job Michael Matheson, the Justice Minister, has been accused of unlawfully intervening to prevent him returning to work while the investigations were conducted.

With Qatar now getting in line to buy Russian S-400 missile systems, the list of those eyeing a purchase keeps growing. The system’s superior capabilities have catching the eye even in markets that traditionally look Westward.

Five nations have now been confirmed to be in various stages of negotiation to buy the S-400 Triumf, or the SA-21 Growler as it is known by NATO. Contracts have already been signed with two: China and Turkey are awaiting deliveries. India, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are still in talks with Russia, ironing out specifics of the deals.

Turkey is a NATO member, and the Gulf’s arms market has long been a closed shop for American and European suppliers.

Rescuers were picking their way through rubble to find survivors Wednesday following a powerful earthquake that struck before midnight off the eastern coast of Taiwan, killing at least seven people, injuring over 250 others and leaving nearly 90 people missing.

According to the island’s Central Weather Bureau, the magnitude 6.0 quake occurred at around 11:50 p.m. Tuesday at a depth of about 10 kilometers, roughly 18 km northeast of the eastern city of Hualien.